Demon in the Shards
by riddling elixa
Summary: Something has come through the rift, and it is ripping the eyes from the Cardiff citizens with no mercy. Without witnesses, the team race to discover what the creature is, and how to stop it. Set one month after Exit Wounds.
1. Couldn't Bare It

**Chapter One, Couldn't Bare It**

"Morning!" The cheery tones of Ianto Jones greeted Gwen as she stumbled into the back seats of the imposing Torchwood SUV. Although the sun was well into the sky, Gwen hadn't had much of a chance to sleep, having only crawled into bed beside Rhys as the sun was rising.  
"Again." Gwen replied, recalling that Ianto had bid her a good morning not more than three hours ago, when she'd left the hub for home. He'd just been turning up to work, lucky sod. Gwen and Jack had been out chasing a stray weevil which had taken a keen interest in a cattery, and had consumed half a dozen before the pair had managed to sedate it. Usually Ianto and Jack would relish in the task, enjoying the hunt as much as Gwen suspected they enjoyed each other, but Ianto had been busy dealing with something Jack didn't want to. They'd not specified the precise details, but Gwen guessed it was political.

"Yes again." Ianto replied with precision, swinging the SUV out of the road. "Though I haven't qualified it with a positive adjective this time." He added. Gwen rubbed her eyes, forcing herself to wake up. She could really do with a coffee right now.  
"What?" She mumbled, not understanding, and her brain not awake at all. Jack was seated in the front passenger seat, and turned to look at her.  
"He means there's nothing _good_ about what's happened." He clarified, "Take a look."

Gwen found herself studying the screens that only a month ago, Toshiko would have been eagerly engaging with. Their glare was offset by the sunshine that was coming in through the tinted windows of the SUV, but Gwen could see the rift readings clearly. There'd been a significant peak half an hour ago roughly. Significant enough, that when cross-referenced to the history of peaks, indicated something almost certainly come through. It gave Gwen's guts a feeling of dread, even without consuming breakfast. After seeing how a weevil consumed cats, a half eaten, bloodied tail hanging from its mouth, she hadn't felt much like food.

"So what's come through?" Gwen asked, pressing a few keys on the compact board to review the other information that the hub's mainframe was sending out to the remote base on wheels. In her jacket, her PDA lit up and gleaned field information, ready for the scene.  
"Clothes shop, central Cardiff, four female shoppers dead. They were trying on clothes in the store's changing rooms when it happened." Ianto began to explain, applying the brakes of the SUV firmly, bringing the vehicle to a halt. Gwen wasn't quite ready for it, despite the fact Ianto drove more smoothly than Jack's boy-racer sprints. She flipped up the keyboard and the trio piled out onto the street. Jack and Ianto seized equipment from within the vehicle, and Gwen followed behind, feeling a little out of the loop.

Pausing outside in the morning sunlight, Gwen surveyed the scene in the street. Shoppers milled with bewildered expressions on the pavement, though there was no panic. In the last month the people of Cardiff had been well versed in what to do when aliens popped out of nowhere, or half the city blew up. Turning back to the front entrance of the store, Gwen saw the familiar sight of two police constables guarding the door, controlling who was coming in, and still persuading bewildered shoppers out. Whatever had come through the rift had certainly come through within the store itself, though it appeared from first glances that the casualties were minimal. However, in her experience, nothing was always as it seemed. The uneasy feeling in Gwen's stomach grew as she followed Ianto and Jack inside, weaving through racks of clothing in a rainbow blur as she jogged to catch up with their figures.

The female changing rooms weren't hard to find, surrounded by the police SOCO team in their white body suits, preventing contamination of the scene. Gwen spotted Andy looking a little green, though holding up well. She wasn't sure if it was the scene, or more the fact he was stood amongst the underwear section. Andy had become a very useful ally since the day John and Grey had ripped Cardiff apart, and was toughening up. Andy had once claimed that Gwen had lost touch with caring about people, and now he seemed to be following suit, especially as he still maintained his interest in joining Torchwood. She'd told him before that he couldn't, but it didn't stop him believing. Before, Andy would have called this scene one of Gwen's 'spooky-doos', but he looked rather more serious today, nodding to Jack and Ianto before looking to Gwen for an explanation.

Coming to a halt near Andy, Gwen could see the blood spatters on the magnolia coloured back wall of the changing room area. The yellow curtains had turned a sickly red-brown colour, and the curtain of the nearest changing cubicle had torn from its rail as the occupant had fallen backwards. Gwen took a sharp intake of breath as she saw the woman. Her face was streaked with blood, which had pooled around her head, soaking into the carpet, turning it crimson. But the most grim part of the scene was the fact that the woman's eyes had been torn from her face, leaving two bloodied and raw holes in her face.

"Couldn't bare to see themselves in these clothes." Andy remarked with a straight face. His voice gave him away. It was like he'd been waiting for the chance to say it to someone who might share the morbid humour. Gwen stepped gingerly over the scene, and looked to the second body, where she found identical wounds.  
"Exactly the same for all four of them." Ianto confirmed, standing between the final two cubicles, looking a little amazed himself.

"Right." Jack began, drawing himself to full height and taking control.  
"Gwen, see if you can find anything out from the witnesses, the assistant, other shoppers, we want to know how this happened, whether anyone came in or out, sounds – you know the sort." Gwen gave a nod, and pulled out her PDA in readiness, bringing up the notes automatically loaded onto the portable device.  
"Ianto, deal with the scene. We'll have to take the bodies back with us," He paused, and Ianto realised he was thinking how crippled the team were without a proper medic. Owen's departure, however valiant, had ripped a huge hole in the team, along with Tosh. He glanced down to the face of one of the nearby women, and noted the holes were rather like the two bloodied gaps in the face, created by whatever had come through the rift.

"Not your weevil things is it?" Andy interrupted. "Not got a delicacy for eyes now have they?" His question was not eagerly enjoyed, especially as Gwen had departed to question a potential witness. Ianto rolled his eyes, and turned back to the equipment, beginning to run scans.  
"Andy isn't it?" Jack asked the copper. "Know anywhere you can get a decent coffee round here?" Ianto bent over the body in the furthest cubicle, holding the scanner a few inches from the skin. He smirked at Jack's question, anticipating what was coming next.  
"There's a good one on the corner, just a minute away-."  
"Make it three – and a bottle of water. Thanks." After a pause, Andy realising he'd been done over by Jack nicely, the police officer retreated, a peeved expression right across his face, with no attempt to hide it. Once he was gone, Jack crouched beside Ianto.  
"Anything?" He shook his head.  
"Nothing, I can't find anything to suggest the cause of death was anything other than the head injuries." Ianto confirmed, as the scanner drew blanks apart from a few bruises and scratches, that were probably caused by the fall backwards. He waved it over the head of the victim, and the two of them looked closely at the screen.

"Carlie is it?" Gwen asked, seeing a meek looking girl, seated on a chair wrapped in a blanket. Where the blanket didn't cover, Gwen could see a uniform beneath, splattered in blood.  
"I'm Gwen Cooper, from Torchwood, I need to ask you a few questions." Carlie nodded numbly, and Gwen crouched beside her, trying to assure her she was safe.  
"Can you tell me what happened?" Gwen promptly softly, tapping a button on her PDA to begin recording the conversation.

"I was working just outside the changing rooms, supervising people taking clothes in and out, y'know. We'd been pretty busy all morning, but that's not unusual. I'd just let one of the ladies into the first cubicle, she'd taken three items in with her, when it happened. I'd probably taken two steps back to my post, and there was this sound…" Carlie frowned, trying to find the words to describe it.  
"Like a window smashing, and all this screaming…" The shop assistant's face drew into a grimace. "… and then like the window smashing backwards again. I turned and saw blood, everywhere, and they just fell through the curtains. Oh God, they had no eyes!" She dissolved into tiny sobs at recalling the incident again. Gwen squeezed Carlie's knee, and spoke soothing words. Her PDA bleeted, and she looked down to see an alert pop up on the screen, flashing. Another, almost identical report of deaths…


	2. Grateful for a Loan

**Chapter 2, Grateful for a Loan**

"Oi!" Andy yelled. Carrying three coffees, he was dismayed to see the Torchwood SUV retreating down the street at a fast pace.  
"Bloody Torchwood!"

"Six this time." Gwen reported, just about managing to read as Jack drove. He had his foot down as usual, just missing parked cars as they sped to the next location. Ianto tapped at the keyboard beside her, searching for any other reports. He was running a check for the injury description in hospital records, newspaper reports, across the local area, and extending it outwards to the UK, and worldwide. Having deemed the last location safe for the SOCOs to bag up the bodies (though they were property of Torchwood for now, and couldn't be autopsied by the police) the three Torchwood officers had set out again.  
"Hairdressers. Two injured seriously." Gwen continued. "Eyes torn out, though we've got a potential witness this time." Carlie had been some help, but hadn't seen the eye extraction occur, so could only give them accounts for the noise.  
"Carlie said it was like the sound of glass breaking, and then the sound reversed, like the broken glass was healing itself." Gwen explained, frowning. Ianto glanced sideways at her.  
"The only glass around were the mirrors, but they were all intact, though blood splattered." He replied, and his screen flashed again.  
"Another report, three year old child, eyes torn out." He told his colleagues, feeling a little sick. What on earth was this that had come through the rift? He cross referenced the results and locations.  
"All three are situated along the rift. There's been three consecutive spikes, though the last two haven't been as large as the first." He drew in closer to examine the activity.  
"Hang on…" He paused. "Four victims at the first scene, six at the second, one at the third." Ianto pointed to the screen. "There's corresponding negative rift activity."

Ianto glanced to Gwen uncomfortably, reminded by the investigation of missing people Gwen and Tosh had carried out, against Jack's orders, the one that Ianto had helped them with.  
"So whatever it is, is stealing them back?" Gwen asked, her features contorted in confusion.  
"Perhaps." Ianto shrugged. "Though, if that's the case, there's eleven pairs of eyeballs somewhere the other side of the rift." He and Gwen exchanged looks of absurdity.  
"That's assuming all its taken are the physical body parts." Jack interrupted, skidding the SUV to a halt.

"What do you mean?" Gwen demanded, slamming shut the SUV door as her feet hit the pavement again. She followed Jack round the far side to the front of the hairdressers. He didn't explain, and Gwen felt a pang of annoyance. Ianto carried out the box of scanners again, just to check the results were consistent, mulling over what Jack had just added. A crowd had gathered at this scene, the windows of the hairdressers were making it easy to see the situation inside, despite the efforts of the police to cover the panes. The trio made their way inside.

The walls of the salon were splattered with blood. Several of the bodies sat in chairs, still wearing branded capes that kept hair from falling on the client's clothing. Two were sprawled across the floor, which was covered in chopped hair, and pools of viscous blood, which was clotting, and streaking where it had been disturbed, presumably by the two injured people who had escaped. Ianto spotted a boot print amongst the blood, and paid close attention to where he was putting is own feet.

"Captain Jack and his team. Better late than never!" They were greeted by a voice that Gwen didn't recognise, but Ianto and Jack found the Scottish tones all too familiar from the last forty-eight hours. Jack in particular, had left Ianto dealing with the situation, escaping with Gwen to sort the weevil while Ianto could only watch them leave. It was a guilty act, but something that Ianto seemed to have forgiven his lover for already. If not, Jack anticipated some angry sex later, which would set everything right.

Straightening up from a crouch beside one of the bodies on the blood splattered floor of the hairdressers, Siobhan Donald examined them critically through her glasses. Ianto recognised her from her file which Torchwood II had released to them. She was tall, slim, with red hair, tied back firmly in a bun. She held her hands out from her clothing, keeping the blood from her rubber examination gloves, away from her smart suit.  
"Siobhan." Jack greeted awkwardly, "you know, usually we don't welcome additions to our team this way…" He continued, gesturing to the bodies on the floor, in pools of blood.  
"Well, I wasn't far. Picked up the rift activity and received news of what had happened here. Thought you'd set up a welcome party for me then?" Siobhan replied dryly. Ianto shifted his grip on the box, adjusting the weight on his arm.  
"Good, you've brought the scanners." Siobhan interrupted, "Put them over here would you Ianto?" Her tone was less of a question, and more of an order. Pausing momentarily to look at Jack out of the corner of his eye, Ianto stepped across the room and placed the box down in a clear patch on the floor, away from the blood splatters, and obliged to open it for Siobhan.

"Er, so who is this?" Gwen asked, turning to Jack, now rather peeved at the fact she was being kept in the dark. Jack turned slightly to face her and looked a little apologetic.  
"Gwen Cooper, this is Siobhan Donald, from Torchwood II," He lowered his voice. "you know, the one with the rather strange man." He added to Gwen, and she nodded. They turned back towards Siobhan and Ianto, who were examining one of the bodies.  
"Sent me down from Glasgow to help you out, since you've lost personnel." Siobhan explained briskly, glancing up over her glasses to Gwen and Jack. Ianto was used to the tone, having dealt with it on the telephone before Siobhan had begun her trip down to Cardiff. Jack had been avoiding dealing with her, and Ianto saw it as a matter of pride. He didn't want to show Torchwood III's vulnerability now they were two – or perhaps more technically – three officers down.

"I'll go speak to the witnesses again then." Gwen told Jack, staring at Siobhan and Ianto working. "Keep me updated." She added, stepping out of the hairdressers again. Jack heard the edge to her voice, sensing the warning of the oncoming tempest which was Gwen Cooper being kept out of the loop. It was a determination to find out what was happening, which had led her into the team, and one that sometimes got her in situations she could have done without. Jack turned to look at a nearby body, of a teenage girl. She was sat in a chair, her arms flopped over, and her head lolling backwards towards him. If she'd had eyes, she would be staring at him, but instead there were two bloodied pits where they would have been.

"Your preliminary thoughts?" Jack asked Siobhan, hoping that despite her intrusion and brisk tones, she would be some use. Her file certainly spoke volumes for her proficiency in autopsy, field medicine and more.  
"The marks aren't consistent with teeth, which was my first thought, that the eyes had been bitten out. I'm more inclined to think they have pulled them out, though…" Jack watched Siobhan lift the hand of the body she was examining. "there's no blood under the fingernails to suggest that they did it themselves. What blood is on the hands, looks more consistent with covering of the eyes after the attack. No, the fingers that pulled these eyes from the skulls were sharper."

Ianto took the scanner from Siobhan's hand, and replaced it back into the equipment case.  
"What did you mean, when you said about the eyes might just be the physical element taken?" He asked Jack, having mulled it over himself while Siobhan had been examining the injuries.  
"Eyes are the windows to the soul Ianto." Jack replied, gazing into the eyes of his colleague and lover, as if gazing down into the very soul of Ianto Jones. The young man nodded.  
"The eye, which is the reflector of the external world, is also the mirror of the soul within." He quipped back, and then stood abruptly.  
"Mirrors." Ianto thought aloud, and looked to his reflection in the wall of mirrors down one side of the salon. Blood dripped down them, as it had back at the clothes shop along the rift. He reached for his PDA, and checked the details of the three year old, sat in a bedroom, with a mirror.

Jack touched his ear, activating his comms.


	3. Watching, Waiting

**Chapter 3 - Watching, Waiting**

"_Gwen. Need you to focus on what the witnesses may or may not have seen in the mirrors."_ Jack's voice came through clearly on her comms, as she entered the A&E department of the local hospital. Through the hustle and bustle of the medical staff, porters and general public, she followed the trolleys of the two seriously injured victims, one male and one female. They were still alive, but one had lost an eye completely, and the other had been blinded. The paramedics had done all they could at the scene, and brought them in directly. Gwen knew they were more than a little shocked that none of the missing eyes were found at the scene.  
"Ok Jack. Though it might be a while until I can ask, they're just getting into A&E now." Gwen replied, a hand to her ear.  
"Andy rang, says the toddler was the same, oh and we forgot our coffees, only not quite as politely as I'm putting it." Gwen relayed. "He's there now, said the kid's face was worse than the adults, and that the SOCOs say the injuries are the same size, just obviously out of proportion with a child's face." Gwen felt glad that the scenes of crime officers were doing an adequate job for once, backing up Torchwood.  
_"I'll let Siobhan know."_ Jack responded, and the comms clicked off.

Gwen considered saying what she thought about Siobhan on first impressions, but held back from doing so. As far as she knew the help from Torchwood II wasn't on their comms link, but she didn't want to risk it. Besides, Ianto seemed alright with Siobhan, to the point where he seemed naturally familiar with her. She'd known his name after all. It perplexed Gwen why neither of her two male colleagues had told her about the potential arrival of the Torchwood II officer. After Tosh and Owen's deaths, they had become closer as a trio, shared more. Though, Gwen considered, as she stood back to let the doctors examine and treat the two blinded witnesses, Ianto and Jack did keep things from her. She'd just not noticed them quite so much until now, when she considered it properly. Sighing to herself, Gwen turned her mind to mirrors, and what Jack could have meant about the eyes not being the only thing taken by the rift.

Outside the hairdressers, the bodies were being put into a morgue van, bagged and sealed. Ianto oversaw the process, giving instructions where to transport the bodies too. It was a morgue not far from the Hub, which had previously been used during larger alien invasions. The Hub's small autopsy area wasn't large enough to cope with eleven bodies at once. He checked his PDA and glanced at his watch. The three attacks had occurred within a half hour time period, and it had been at least half an hour since the report of the three year old. In that time, the rift seemed to have settled, showing fairly stable and barely noticeable activity. Whatever had attacked was satisfied, or resting. The halt gave Ianto mixed feelings, some of relief, some of dread. Perhaps it was waiting for them, watching.

As they had gathered the bodies to transport them, Ianto had avoided looking up into the mirrors on the walls. Despite not having the supporting accounts from the two witnesses, between himself and Jack, the mirrors appeared to be a tying factor between all three. The parents of the three year old had also reported hearing sounds of 'breaking glass' which had led them to initially believe the glass had cut the face of their child. It tied in with Carlie's description from the first scene at the shop. However, as Jack had pointed out, there wasn't a single crack or abnormality in the mirrors at the salon, nor at the shop, or even the child's room. Andy had grudgingly obliged to check the mirror for them. The sound and the absence of their eyes were the two factors linking all three along the rift fault.

"Back to the Hub." Jack commanded, watching the van drive away with the six salon bodies.  
"Siobhan can perform autopsies after we regroup and examine the evidence. It seems for now whatever it is, is biding its time." Ianto nodded, and caught sight of Siobhan leaving the front door of the salon, tossing her gloves into the public bin outside on the pavement.  
"When they said Torchwood III swanned around in a tank, they weren't far off." She commented, raising an eyebrow at the black SUV parked in the road. Ianto shrugged.  
"Wasn't our choice." He defended, quite fond of the team's wheels. Siobhan raised an eyebrow, and pulled open the passenger door, much to Ianto's slight annoyance, having wanted to sit beside Jack.  
"They say," Siobhan began, pausing before getting in, "that a car is the extension of a guy's manhood." She glanced to Jack in the driver's seat, and then to Ianto stood on the pavement beside her.  
"So whoever ordered this had to be making up for something." She finished, swinging herself neatly up into the passenger seat, and slamming the door behind her. Ianto shook his head slightly, and pulled open the back door, climbing in. She was wrong. Jack of all people had nothing to make up for in that sense.

It felt natural to have three in the hub, though Gwen made a lot more noise than Siobhan did. The Welsh girl would make up for the fact they were two colleagues down, by creating enough noise to replace them, whistling and muttering to herself as she worked. Occasionally, Ianto had noticed her begin to ask Tosh a question, as if their deceased colleague were still sat at her bank of computer screens, attacking the keyboard with vigour. Gwen would blush, lowering her head, bringing her dark hair forward over her face, and reducing her toothy expression to a lost one. Ianto understood what she felt. It had taken him a while to get out of the habit of making a standard five cups of coffee on a morning. He'd packed away Owen's mug into storage, adding it to the box containing Owen's lab coat, adorned with his brightly coloured pins. Jack had folded it away himself, while Ianto attended to the officer records, logging Owen, and then Tosh, out of the system for the last time.

"You rather like the cold and gloomy then, do you?" Siobhan asked, standing in the centre of the Hub, putting down her medical bag. Ianto watched her from the coffee machine, attending to the caffeine requirements of the three of them. Gwen had just come through on the comms to update them that she was trying to snatch a few minutes with the survivors before they went into emergency surgery.  
"We consider it fitting for the job." Ianto replied. Siobhan opened her mouth to reply, but Ianto held a hand up to stop her, as Gwen's voice broke through on the comms again.  
_"Jack, Ianto."_ There was an edge to her voice, a wobble that gave away when she was worried, and unable to hide it.  
"Go ahead Gwen." Jack replied, and Ianto saw him push open the door from the boardroom, a hand to his ear.  
_"I've spoken to the witnesses. You're right it was the mirrors. Its some sort of wraith like creature, appears in the reflection, crashes through, and goes for the eyes. Apparently these two managed to fight it off – said it was quicker than anything they'd ever seen. They've gone to surgery now, but their chances of helping them are pretty slim."_ Ianto felt proud for making the link himself, about the mirror, but it was quickly dampened by the news that the witnesses would probably be blinded.  
"Just get back to the Hub, we need to gather intelligence and work out a strategy." Jack instructed, walking out towards Siobhan.  
_"Will do."_ Gwen severed the comms link.

Jack looked from Siobhan to Ianto, and saw no recognition from either face, with regards to the description. He had hoped the witnesses would provide descriptions that would ring true to something Torchwood had encountered before, but apart from an interest in eyeballs, this was an unknown for all of them. He could sympathise with Gwen's earlier annoyance over being left out of the loop.


End file.
